The Last Species

By Gary Braz

Destroy It or They Will Come - Wanting only an ordinary life, Katelin Conner is desperately wondering if she is going insane or whether the visions in her mind could possibly be true. A newly-trained FBI agent, Best in Class and working in a small field office near the Oregon Coast, Katelin begins a routine investigation into the shooting of an endangered whale and discovers a ten-year-old boy dead on the beach.

Suspecting that he was murdered, she is determined to solve the case but starts having terrifying, unearthly visions and fears for her sanity. Desperate for the truth and discovering evidence that the visions may be more than imagined, she begins an investigation that leads from the Oregon Coast to the frozen regions of the Arctic wilderness to see whether the vision s are true and how they could possibly be related to a young boy’s murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Braz
• Release date: Aug 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985886912

Book preview

Historical Account

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Adam of Bremen

Book 4, Chapter 31, of Adam of Bremen's

'Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum'

(from ca. 1074/75 AD)

All People in Norway are Christians, except those who live in remote coasts of the ocean, far north of the Polar Circle. It is told that they use incantations of great power to understand what each one is doing in every part of the world. Also, they murmur mighty words that beckon great sea whales to shore. And many such things they do easily by experience, as told in the Bible only about sorcerers. They are most vile.

Prologue (Ages Ago)

____________

The old man staggered up the frozen path and to the very edge of an icy precipice that dropped seventy feet into the Arctic Ocean, north of the Polar Circle. Trembling, he gazed beyond his long, scraggy beard and peered inside the animal fur cloak wrapped around his body. Blood covered his chest and dripped from a hole in his shoulder and from the tip of a broken wooden spear, still embedded in his flesh. With painful gasps, he felt the backside of his shoulder and touched the other end of the broken spear. The jagged shaft had pierced through both sides and burned like fire in his body. Eyes closed, he tried his best to block the pain, while his bare feet, numbed to the ice, tottered over the edge of the seventy-foot drop.

Gritting his teeth, he grabbed hold of the inch or so of wood protruding from his chest and pulled hard. Aaaaaaaaaaa! His scream bellowed through the desolate valleys and snow-covered mountains behind him and down to the icy water below.

Blood gushed from the cavernous hole in his shoulder. Then suddenly, as his trembling hands dropped the extracted wood over the edge, three huge whales surfaced from the bitter cold water, spouted their mist high into the air and sang back to him.

The old man shuddered and pressed his cloak against the wound to slow the bleeding. Turning, he faced the frozen wilderness behind him and listened intently, then gasped.

Dogs! I hear them…must be twenty or more. His eyes widened with horrible dread. The hunters are coming again…this time with dogs!

With his teeth clenched to withstand the throbbing in his shoulder, he hurried back down the icy path, across a frozen plain and toward the mountains opposite the sound of the dogs. Must hide. He glanced back repeatedly and staggered as he ran. Yes, they’re coming! He couldn’t see them yet and surmised that they couldn’t see him either, but he also noticed his tracks in the snow and the trail of blood. Just get to the cave! They’ve never found the cave.

Stepping carefully along an icy canyon ridge, he hoped the dogs wouldn’t be able to follow him down the treacherous path. At least it will slow them down. Faster, he trudged through a snow-covered valley to a mountain range in the heart of the wilderness, his breath steaming as it met the frigid air. Spying a large, icy mountain amid the arctic landscape, he exhaled with relief. There it is!

Then he stiffened, turned and listened. The dogs had made it across the canyon ridge and had entered the valley. He could see them now – barking, growling and snapping their teeth. They were running toward him with all their might.

With abandon, he scaled the frozen mountain, terror outweighing the searing pain in his shoulder. He needed desperately to scream but feared any sound from his lips would reveal his location, as if the dogs didn’t already know. The hunters aren’t far behind! Is it too late to hide?

The cave entrance was midway up the mountainside, concealed behind a bolder. Grimacing from pain and fatigue, the old man rushed in and hurried down a dark tunnel into a fifty-foot high cavern. There, he climbed up on a ledge and hid behind an ice-encrusted rock.

The dogs entered the cave and sniffed the air wildly. They clawed at the ice and wandered in different directions, searching, as if they had suddenly lost the scent. Soon, the hunters arrived, ten of them with torches. They shouted to each other with amazement as their torchlights revealed the massive cavern. Its ice floor was spired with thick, round stalagmites that rose some twenty to thirty feet into the air, like soldiers guarding the cave. The cavern’s craggy limestone walls radiated a faint light and revealed a haunting mixture of shadows amid the crooks and crevices, while the high ceiling was covered with stalactites that hung down like sharp spikes. Slowly and cautiously, the hunters explored the cavern as the icy ground crunched beneath their feet.

Hidden high on the dark ledge, the old man remained still and hoped that they all would leave, but one of the dogs finally saw him and barked, causing the other dogs to rejoin the hunt. Within seconds, the hunters also spotted him and gathered quickly beneath the ledge. The old man shuddered, afraid to breathe. He recognized some of them. Long scraggly hair hung from their heads and faces, and they had wrapped their bodies in animal skin. Each carried a wooden spear tipped with a sharp stone.

Suddenly, the old man gasped loudly from the pain in his shoulder. The sound startled the hunters, so much so that they jumped back in fear, their eyes bulging at the shadowy figure on the ledge. They stared at him for a long while, then mustered their courage and advanced, slowly at first, one step at a time, then more boldly. Closer, they gnashed their teeth at him and threw several spears. One gashed his arm and blood flowed.

A spear landed within reach. The old man considered picking it up to defend himself, but quickly rejected the notion. No. I’m not like them. Another spear flew toward its mark and cut into his leg. He yelled and then trembled, too terrified to look down. They’ll tear me apart!

Two hunters climbed up after him, so he backed farther up the ledge. No! Get down! Leave me alone! He crept as far away as he could until he encountered a wall of ice and could go no farther. With terrified glances, he searched for a way out but there was none. He saw the blood lust in their eyes and the sharp edges of their spears. What if I frighten you? Is that what you want? Is that what you came for?

So with his last bit of courage, he stepped forward on the ledge, dropped his cloak to the ground and dared to do something that had been long forbidden. Opening his mouth, he let out his breath and a low-pitched hum resonated from his lips. The sound grew louder until it became a strong vibration. The disturbance shook the icy ledge, causing the two hunters climbing after him to fall. The rest of the hunters covered their ears and backed away, trembling in a fit of terror as the sound grew still louder.

Suddenly, the old man glowed with reddish light. He grew larger and his skin bubbled until it lost its shape. It dissolved away, starting with his head and moving down, like the melting of a hot candle. Within seconds, he transformed into a tubular shape, roughly eight feet high and three feet in diameter. This creature had no arms, legs or appendages of any sort. It was cylindrical and hovered high in the air with no head or eyes, yet it saw the hunters below and moved toward them, its smooth tubular surface radiating light. Abruptly, its vibration changed to a high-pitched squeal and its light paled from red to livid blue.

The hunters screamed and backed against the farthest wall, but they didn’t flee as the creature had hoped. Instead, they yelled bravely as one, rushed forward and threw their spears. One spear after another pierced the creature’s tubular skin. Waves of pain shot through its body, until it began a slow descent toward the ice floor. The dogs gathered beneath and barked wickedly, licking their teeth.

It’s happening! The creature shuddered in great terror as a lifetime of memories flashed through its mind. To quell its widening fear, it finally looked away and began to sing the most beautiful song it knew – a resonant sound, a multitude of vibrations, the last song it would ever sing. The hunters covered their ears and the dogs turned silent. Sensing death, the creature sang louder and, in the distance, it heard whales sing back in reply.

The cavern rumbled and shook from the intense vibrations, until the earth quaked and the ice splintered. Great cracks formed along the cave’s walls. Portions of the ceiling gave way and slabs of heavy ice fell, crashing down in a thunderous roar. The mighty stalagmites that rose from the ground toppled over and ice particles filled the air, blanketing the inside of the cave like snow. The hunters grabbed one another and cried out, then ran for the single opening to get out of the mountain. But the opening collapsed in a massive landslide of ice and rock, sealing them inside the cave.

The ground rumbled again and the ice floor split down the middle from one end of the cave to the other, forming a ravine that was wide and exceedingly deep. As the ice shattered, hundreds of dead tubular creatures rose through the ice, causing the hunters to scream at the sickening sight of the unearthed burial ground. With frantic gasps, they clawed at the ice and rock wall that had sealed the exit. Several of them turned their anger against the creature and would have torn it to pieces, but the deep ravine would not let them pass, so they threw their remaining spears and then hurled rocks. Enraged, they staggered and became angrier, as a strange sort of madness overtook them.

The vibrations finally quieted down and the mountain became still, but the hunters’ madness grew until they turned against each other, beastly furious. One lifted a large stone and crushed another’s skull, while two were thrown headlong into the ravine to their deaths. Gorged with madness, the hunters killed each other with their bare hands, even biting each other’s flesh and tasting each other’s blood, until all were dead, save one.

With a bloodied face and a wild look in his eyes, the last hunter staggered to the edge of the ravine. Reeling forward and back, he gnashed his teeth at the creature. Then, with a loud shout of anger, he too tumbled headlong into the seemingly endless pit and descended into the blackness until he finally hit bottom.

With the last hunter gone, the creature glided over the ravine to the sealed opening and sent a powerful vibration deep into the earth. But with all its might, it could not bring down the wall of ice and rock. It tried for an entire day and again the next. And on each successive day, it tried again. Time passed – weeks, months, perhaps years. The creature watched the flesh on each hunter slowly decay, until all that remained were white skeletal bones wrapped in dried-out animal skin. In time, the creature formed a flat, round memory crystal for each hunter who had died, preserving the memory of their passing and what little the creature knew about each of their lives.

More time passed.

Noticing its reflection in the ice, the creature transformed itself back into the shape of the old man, then gazed curiously at his strange form and hideous appendages – the gangly arms, knobby legs and hair-covered head, all protruding out of his body in odd, unsightly directions. The shape was not smooth, symmetric or lovely in any way. The form radiated no light. The creature shuddered. Gazing at his face, he tried to gnash his teeth the way the hunters had gnashed their teeth. Then he tried to growl the way the hunters had growled, but the gurgling sound he produced was not the same. Finally, he tried to smile the way the hunters had smiled when they had found him. But again, it was not the same. Poking his craggy fingers into each corner of his upper lip, he pushed both ends upward. No, it simply wasn’t a human smile. Nothing about him seemed human in any way. And for that at least, he was thankful.

The creature finally transformed itself back into the tubular shape that felt infinitely more comfortable. Still, with nothing to do and nowhere to go it gazed out in its loneliness and felt the weariness of each passing second. In time, it rested itself between the cracks in the ice as its mind wandered and, gradually, the creature fell into a deep sleep. It didn’t know how long its sleep would last, not that it mattered, for time had become irrelevant.

Nevertheless, irrelevant or not, time went on.

Oregon’s Southern Coast (Today)

Chapter 1

The FBI, the Whale Incident and the Vision that Followed

____________

Katelin Conner hadn’t fired a gun in six months. She had quietly decided that she would never fire one again. Her boss, David Deegan, didn’t know about it, nor did anyone else at the small FBI office in Eugene, Oregon. It was her secret. But as she started her first field assignment in nearly as many months, she wondered how long she could keep her secret hidden.

Excuse me, she said, trying to nudge her way through a crowd that had gathered on Horsfall Beach, just north of Coos Bay. I’m with the FBI. Excuse me. Can I get through?

About forty or fifty beachgoers stood barefoot in the sand, each facing the Pacific Ocean and straining to peer over the heads of those in front. Katelin couldn’t see beyond them. Carrying her digital camera and a notepad, she wedged her way through the crowd.

Pardon me. She tried to squeeze by a man who must have weighed three hundred pounds. He grunted and refused to move, until she flashed her ID. "Excuse me! she demanded. Then she gazed with amazement at the crowd. Why’s everyone here? Haven’t you all seen a beached whale before?"

Katelin made her way to the front and smelled the whale before she actually saw it. It was massive – about forty-five feet long and, she guessed, seven or eight tons. Its rank odor told her that it had been dead for some time. A line of yellow police tape, held up by wooden stakes in the sand, stretched in a large semicircle around the whale and down to the water. Numerous policemen stood inside the cordoned-off area. That’s strange, she thought. To her knowledge, no prior incident involving a beached whale had ever been marked off as a crime scene.

Katelin tried to step over the line but a policeman stopped her. Restricted area, ma’am.

Katelin Conner, FBI, she answered, showing her ID. We received a report that someone shot and killed an endangered whale. I’m investigating whether any activist groups were involved. She peered curiously at all the policemen standing about. What’s going on?

The policeman examined her ID and gave a disgruntled scowl. We don’t need no FBI, ma’am. We’re just waiting for the coroner.

Pardon? Coroner? Katelin laughed and glanced curiously at the whale. "For that?"

The policeman rolled his eyes. No ma’am.

Suddenly, Katelin noticed something strange about the whale. Its eyes were extended out of their sockets, as if they had exploded, and a bullet hole marked the center of the whale’s head. Then, as the policemen shifted about, she saw a body lying in the sand about twenty feet in front of the whale. It was a young boy, no more than ten, with black hair and pale skin, puffy and bloated. The child was naked and his eyes were out of their sockets, like the whale’s eyes.

Katelin gaped in horror and then quickly became alarmed at all the policemen walking through what was clearly in her mind an investigation area. What are you all doing walking around there? she asked in a loud voice. None of the policemen responded or even noticed that she had spoken. So she shouted at them. I said, what are you all doing near the body? You’re walking all over the place. This is a crime scene. There’s evidence here. Get out!

The policemen turned toward her as one and stared incredulously. The kid drowned, one of them said in a belittling tone.

Katelin widened her eyes. "Are you serious? We have a dead child several feet from where a firearm has been discharged. And look at his eyes!" she exclaimed, pointing in horror at the boy.

The police officer nearest the body shrugged, causing Katelin to gasp at his indifference. Enough! she yelled, and held up her ID. I’m Katelin Conner with the FBI. I’m taking control of this investigation and ordering you to leave this crime scene.

The policemen all stared at her without moving.

"Now! She stepped over the tape and started taking their pictures with her camera. I want to see all of your written reports. And you’d better list in detail everything you touched!"

The policemen looked at each other quizzically and then at Katelin with no small measure of disgust. Finally, one threw up his hands and walked off beyond the yellow tape.

Your funeral, he muttered.

Begrudgingly, the others followed and within seconds, Katelin stood alone in the center of the cordoned off area. Suddenly, the crowd cheered.

Katelin gazed with trepidation at all the onlookers, uneasy that she was now the center of attention. Everyone was watching her. In her mind, she could see Deegan, her boss, shaking his head, having sent her on a straightforward task to investigate the use of a firearm on an endangered whale, only to find that she had now commandeered an investigation into what may very well be, as the policeman had said, a simple case in drowning. Still, she couldn’t understand how they could treat the situation so casually.

She soon forgot about the crowd as her mind clicked through memorized checklists of investigative procedures for handling a crime scene. Though the officers had heavily contaminated the area, she was determined to mine whatever evidence remained. She started by photographing everything from where she was standing – the body, the whale, the sand, the crowd, the ocean, even the fishing boats sailing nearby. Opening her notepad, she wrote detailed descriptions of everything she saw. Finally, she approached the body, noticing the grains of sand before she stepped on them. The boy’s skin was yellowish-white. His eyes were out of their sockets and hung down along his face. Katelin shuddered and wrote a detailed description of the eyes. "Blown out, she muttered. It was the only way she could sum up the horrific image. It looks like his eyes were blown out of their sockets!" Awestruck, she wondered what could have caused such a thing to both a young boy and an enormous whale.

She noticed a deep cut extending across the boy’s forehead, just below the hairline. Then she checked the body for bullet holes, but there were none. Maybe he did drown, she thought.

Suddenly, her cell phone rang. Removing it from her pocket, she glanced at the caller-ID and immediately tensed. With a nervous sigh, she answered, Hello, this is Agent Conner. Then she closed her eyes and waited.

This is Deegan. How’s the whale investigation coming along?

Katelin grimaced. I….

Deegan cut her off before she could answer. You do remember your assignment, don’t you? he asked. You were to investigate the use of a firearm on an endangered animal to see if any activist groups on our watch list were involved, right?

Katelin nodded.

Right?

Yes sir.

So why is it that I spent the last twenty minutes on the phone with the police captain from Coos Bay? Deegan demanded. He claimed that you chased his men off and won’t allow them into the area. I assured him that an agent on my payroll who valued her job would never do such a reckless and career-ending thing. ‘It must be some kind of misunderstanding,’ I said. I explained that our agents are trained to cooperate with local police and I promised him that I would call you right away to make sure that such a foolhardy thing couldn’t possibly have happened.

Sir, you don’t understand, I found this boy who….

Who had apparently drowned? Deegan asked. Agent Conner, whether he did or didn’t drown is none of your concern. Or are you under some misguided impression that you now work as a homicide investigator? Or perhaps you think you work for missing persons?

No sir, Katelin answered.

Then tell me, who do you work for?

Katelin noticed that the policemen she had chased away were watching her from the crowd. One sneered at her and waived his cell phone. She turned away and faced the ocean. I work for you, sir.

Then let me make things crystal clear, since you are obviously more than a little confused right now, he said. Number one – do your job. Number two – let the local police do theirs. Or number three – you can go work for whomever you damn well please, but it won’t be for me!

Katelin closed her eyes and wondered how long it would take to sell her beach house in Florence and move north to Portland.

Did you hear me Agent Conner?

Yes sir, she answered, meekly.

Then come Monday morning, I want to see on my desk your report of the firearm investigation. And I’d better not read any details about anything else that might have struck your curiosity. Do you understand this clearly now?

Katelin hated that question. It was so demeaning. This investigation isn’t being handled correctly, she said, already envisioning herself packing up for the last time what little was left in her desk. But yes sir, your instructions are very clear.

This is your first field assignment since the shooting death of your partner, Deegan said. You know my doubts about reinstating you.

I know, sir.

Over the weekend, I want you to think about your role in this and about your future with the FBI. That will be all. Deegan hung up.

Katelin stuffed the phone back into her pocket. That will be all, she repeated. She hated that expression, too. It had become his standard way of ending a conversation with her. He used it like a club to drive home the last nail, the last word, and to summarily dismiss a subordinate who had clearly displeased him.

Taking a deep breath, she turned and faced the crowd. The policemen gazed at her with contempt. She could tell by their smug expressions that they knew exactly what had just gone down. Mustering what remained of her dignity, Katelin held her head up. I’m done with my investigation, she shouted. You can have the body. Then she backed away.

The policemen came at once into the cordoned off area. They went right to work and ignored her like she didn’t exist. The coroner arrived and, within minutes, the boy’s body was removed.

Not my problem, Katelin told herself. She turned instead to what was definitely her problem – a smelly whale with a gunshot wound in the center of its head. Looks like it’s just you and me, she said, smiling sadly at the blubbery carcass.

Katelin photographed the whale from various angles and took several close-up shots of the bullet hole. Several inches above the hole, a flat, round seashell about three inches in diameter had been gouged into the whale’s skin, as if someone had put it there intentionally and didn’t want it to fall away. Katelin took a close-up photo of the shell. It looked like a sand dollar – white and pitted with many small perforations that formed a symmetric, petal-like design on its surface. In all her years living in Oregon, she had never found sand dollars along the coast and wondered why one was now stuck into the flesh of a dead whale. Gently, she pried it loose with her pencil and dropped it into a paper evidence bag, being careful not to touch it and possibly destroy any fingerprints or DNA remains.

Hmm, she said, examining the bullet hole. Looks like a .22 caliber. Again using her pencil, she measured the depth of the hole. The bullet wasn’t in very deep. With a little twisting and prying, she extracted it and dropped it into another evidence bag. Then she grimaced at all the blood covering her hands and pencil and washed them off in the surf.

She looked back from the water to where the boy’s body had been and could still see the indentation in the sand. How is it that a dead boy and a dead whale washed up on a beach together? she wondered. And what on earth happened to their eyes?

She wanted to check the crowd for witnesses, but the police were already conducting interviews. Katelin couldn’t bear another confrontation with them. I’ll just get in the way. And they seem to be doing a good job now, she thought. I’ll get their reports on Monday.

Katelin quietly slipped away from the scene and headed to her car. Halfway there, she stopped and looked back, angry with herself for being so weak. Damn it! I should be interviewing those people. And I shouldn’t be afraid of those policemen! But she also remembered Deegan’s lecture and the way the policeman with the cell phone had sneered at her.

Nope, that’s it. I’m through, she said. I can’t do this job anymore. With a sigh, Katelin walked numbly to her car. She didn’t know what line of work she would be doing come Monday morning, but was convinced that any other job would be an improvement.

Unlocking the trunk, she stored away her camera, notepad and evidence bags. With another sigh, she climbed into the driver’s seat and put the key into the ignition. Suddenly, she noticed a small piece of paper under her windshield wiper and closed her eyes. This can’t be! she whispered hotly. Getting out of her car, she removed a ticket citing her for double parking.

They gotcha! hollered a blond-haired man in his late twenties. Dressed in shorts, a blue T-shirt and wearing no shoes, he looked like a typical beachgoer. He walked toward her car with a wide grin.

Excuse me? snapped Katelin, in no mood for conversation.

I said, looks like the police got you, he repeated. You know, for what you did to ’em. I have to say, though, I admire your spunk. They were really screwing up, weren’t they? I took this course once in crime scene investigation techniques. They just weren’t doing it by the book. Not even close.

Katelin squinted at the man. Do I know you?

Ty Martin, he said with a smile. Freelance reporter for…well, for whichever newspaper is paying. Mostly local stuff, but a few times I’ve written for the Portland Tribune.

That’s nice. Katelin nodded politely from the front seat and pulled the car door closed.

Ty tapped on the side window.

Katelin sighed from exhaustion and rolled the window partway down. Really, I’m not up for an interview, she said.

Then how about dinner? Ty smiled.

Katelin’s mouth dropped open. "What?"

You know, dinner? Ty smiled again.

I don’t even know you, she said, squinting disdainfully, and you’re hitting on me in the parking lot after what just happened? I smell like a fish.

Ty grinned, confident and undeterred. You look pretty cute, though.

Katelin groaned. Oh, please! Go away. Go…write your article. She rolled up the window and drove off without looking back. It was the fitting end to a perfectly horrendous day. Some sea urchin asking me for a date, she thought, as if I couldn’t be more of a loser. She sighed wearily and drove north on Highway 101 for the next half-hour, all the while retracing in her mind what had happened on the beach. I know I was right. They weren’t handling the investigation correctly, she told herself. So why then do I feel like such a fool?

Katelin thought again of quitting and moving north to Portland, where dreams of plentiful jobs with higher salaries blossomed like wildflowers. But as always, the thought of leaving her beach house in Florence to live in a big city killed that notion long before the wildflowers could take root. No, I love the Oregon coast, she thought, rightfully.

She drove near Winchester Bay and noticed a sign for Umpqua Lighthouse. Maybe that’s what I need – My old hiding place, she said, recalling her turbulent teenage years and how three times she had run away from home to hide inside the lighthouse. Though more than ten years had passed since the last runaway episode, the memories were still fresh – the white lighthouse tower, the red and white flashing beacon on top, and the two oil houses connected to the tower below. Oh yes, she still remembered it –

Get that rock! Hurry, before someone sees me. In darkness, young Katelin picked up a large rock and smashed the window near the lighthouse door. Reaching in, she turned the handle and the wooden door creaked open. The century old lighthouse reeked of musty odor from its oil soaked floorboards. The dank smell immediately fueled the imagination with thoughts of ferocious storms and ships at sea, being beckoned to safe harbor. She ran through the two oil houses to the circular stairwell and climbed the tower steps to a small room directly beneath the beacon. Red and white light from the beacon filtered through the cracks in the ceiling boards as she sat by the window, high above the problems that had caused her to run away. There, Katelin gazed out at the beach and ocean. My hiding place, she whispered, feeling at once the serenity of the gentle beacon light and the security of the tower walls. With her pocketknife, she carved into the windowsill – KATELIN WAS HERE!

It only took an hour of so for her dad to find her, since she had already run away to that very place twice before. From the lighthouse window, she watched him drive up in the middle of the night, like a white knight coming to her rescue.

Now, her teenage years behind her, Katelin marveled that the mere thought of that lighthouse still made her feel safe. Still my old hiding place. She glanced in her mirror and grimaced again at the dreadful episode on the beach. If only dad were still alive to rescue me. I wonder what advice he would have for me about my job. Well, mom’s just down the road in North Bend. Maybe I should ask her. But she scrunched her nose at that idea, knowing that it wouldn’t nearly be the same as talking with her father. And at that point in their lives, her mother’s age, failing health and questionable memory made any conversation a challenge for both of them.

So Katelin drove on toward her beach house. The road cut through the Dunes National Recreation Area, where she gazed across miles of towering sand that made it one the oddest places in the United States, as if part of the Sahara Desert had been lifted up and transplanted halfway around the world. This vast desert wilderness stretched over forty miles, the largest expanse of coastal dunes in North America. Katelin couldn’t help but feel about herself the way she regarded the immense sand dunes – odd and out of place.

Finally arriving at her beach house in Florence, she parked in the driveway and wearily got out of her car. Grabbing her camera, notepad and evidence bags from the trunk, she climbed the wooden steps to her front porch, slid her key into the door lock and heard a loud noise from inside.

Woof!

Bullet, it’s me, she shouted. Calm down.

As she opened the door and stepped in, a very large golden retriever jumped on her with both front paws and licked her face. The dog pinned her against the wall and kept licking. His wildly ecstatic tail whipped across the hall table, knocking over a small vase filled with wildflowers.

Sit, boy. Katelin grabbed the dog by the collar and then shook him by his ears. "I said, sit!" Bullet couldn’t have been more excited to see her. And sitting was out of the question.

I know what you’d like, she said, tauntingly. The dog immediately raced for the kitchen. Katelin followed and reached into a cupboard. She pulled out a dried, barbequed pig’s ear, touching as little of it as possible. The pig’s ear was hard as wood and made her cringe. Bullet nearly knocked her over trying to get it. Okay, boy, she said and tossed it down the hall. Bullet barreled after it, knocking over the hall table. Katelin hurried after him, set the table upright, picked up the flowers and smiled at him. Well, at least someone loves me.

Walking into the small den she used as an office, she laid the evidence bags, camera and notepad